Grande dame of cooking still going strong at 90: Julia Child celebrates in San Francisco. How does it feel to turn 90 and have attained the status of an icon, a living legend? "It feels just like it felt before," Julia Child says with the throaty laugh familiar to millions who cut their culinary teeth on her "French Chef" television series. The show, along with her seminal book, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" (1961), revolutionized the way America cooks and eats. While making light of the difference a day -- or another decade -- makes, Child intends to enjoy her birthday thoroughly. First, there will be all the public observances, including a sold-out dinner Thursday at San Francisco's tony Fifth Floor restaurant, which -- like dinners that night at 19 other venues across the country -- will benefit the scholarship fund of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (which Child co-founded). Friday to Sunday, the action moves to Napa, with both members-only and public events at COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts, of which she is an honorary board member. Aug. 15, her actual birthday, will see her in Maine at an annual gathering of nieces, nephews, their offspring and friends, who for many years have rolled a joined birthday celebration for several members of the group into a jolly reunion. The schedule Child and her assistant of 14 years, former pastry chef Stephanie Hersh, have laid out is not exactly a senior-citizen routine, even though Child has always been candid about her age and realistic in assessing her own capabilities. When the Pasadena native moved back to California from her long-time home in the Boston area last year, she also made the move from a condominium she and her late husband, Paul, had purchased many years ago to a progressive retirement home. She is in the most active of the four levels available, but should the need arise, she can move on to assisted living facilities within the same complex. 

How old is Julia Child?


On a busy Friday morning in Manhattan, nine pedestrians suffered bullet or fragment wounds after police unleashed a hail of gunfire at a man wielding a .45 caliber pistol who had just killed a former co-worker. The officers unloaded 16 rounds in the shadow of the Empire State Building at a disgruntled former apparel designer, killing him after he engaged in a gunbattle with police, authorities said. Three passersby sustained direct gunshot wounds, while the remaining six were hit by fragments, according to New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. All injuries were caused by police, he said Saturday. One officer shot nine rounds and another shot seven. Police identified the gunman as Jeffrey Johnson, 58, who was apparently laid off from his job as a designer of women's accessories at Hazan Import Co. last year. Johnson, who served in the U.S. Coast Guard in the mid-1970s, had two rounds left in his pistol. It holds eight, Kelly said. Police identified the slain co-worker as Steven Ercolino, 41, who had apparently filed a prior complaint against his assailant, claiming that he thought Johnson would eventually try to kill him. Both men had filed harassment complaints against each other in April 2011, Kelly added. Ercolino was listed as a vice president of sales at Hazan Import Corp., according to his LinkedIn profile. "It's not something that should happen to a loving person like that," said his brother, Paul. "He's going to be so missed by everybody. He was a light of so many lives." 

Who shot Jeffrey Johnson?


The highest point of a wave is the crest. The lowest point is the trough. The vertical distance between a crest and a trough is the height of the wave. Wave height is also called amplitude. The horizontal distance between two crests is the wavelength. Both amplitude and wavelength are measures of wave size. The size of an ocean wave depends on how fast, over how great a distance, and how long the wind blows. The greater each of these factors is, the bigger a wave will be. Some of the biggest waves occur with hurricanes. A hurricane is a storm that forms over the ocean. Its winds may blow more than 150 miles per hour! The winds also travel over long distances and may last for many days. 


Other factors being equal, why would an ocean wave be larger if the wind were blowing 150 miles per hour than if it the wind were blowing 100 miles per hour?